Andrew Dalton and Edward Fink started similar spiritual journeys. Affluent uber-Catholics in metro Atlanta, they frequently attended Mass and practiced traditional church teachings.
Ultimately, they joined the Legionaries of Christ, the orthodox religious order that aggressively recruits young men for the priesthood.
Their odysseys mirror the controversial group: a journey of deep devotion or cultlike practices.
Five years ago, the group emerged at the vortex of a nasty fight when several parents discovered that the Legion shaped the curriculum and spiritual direction of the Donnellan School, a Catholic institution in Sandy Springs. One-third of the 430 students withdrew from the school. Three administrators and two teachers were dismissed and escorted from the grounds. About a third of the school’s teachers quit between September to October 2000.
The school survived and is now thriving, known as Holy Spirit Preparatory. It operates independently of the archdiocese and maintains its Legion chaplains. Throughout Atlanta, the Legionaries have grown into a substantial presence with 10 priests in the region and a new headquarters in Dunwoody.
As for the young metro Atlantans, Dalton is training to be a priest in Rome, while Fink became an agnostic and only recently is circling back toward Christianity
Fink’s accusations center on a sort of control exerted on him when he was a teen in the LC minor seminary – that when he started to have doubts about a vocation, matter he had revealed in spiritual direction was used against him to convince him to stay – that he could never atone for his past sins outside the Legion.
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